Renters Keepers

I don't think I got an allowance when I was a kid. Every now and then I'd get the itch for something, and I'd ask my parents for it. They'd most of the time tell me, no son, you can't have that random thing which costs a bunch of money and will end up just sitting in the garage two days after you buy it. Sometimes I would get a little cash for doing chores, but I didn't really have much to spend it on; I could get free food at the Sea Cloud Snack Shack because my Dad umpired up more store credit than he could ever use. I didn't need video games because my brother would get them, or I'd rent them. Let me tell you about my childhood of renting games.

I lived near Foster City Video, which had a fairly decent selection of video games in the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis era. When Friday rolled around, my friends who lived in the same complex and I would race immediately to the store after school to rent the game du jour. The typical foursome we had was Zach, Kevin, Joe, and myself. Zach, Kevin and I rode our bikes to school, so we were typically at an advantage over the kids who were driven home from school, thanks to being able to take shortcuts and leave immediately after school. The reason we had to race there was that I was convinced there were at least three other groups of kids in the area that also wanted to rent that game every weekend. If we didn't get there first, we ran the risk of losing it for the weekend. Of even greater concern was the fact that, as a rental, those mystery kids could do anything they liked with it for the weekend, including deleting our save (this was back when save games were kept on the game itself.)

Assuming we successfully got the game in time (which we almost always did, pick your favorite reason why) we'd then race even faster to Zach's house to play. Zach's room was made for entertaining; he and his brother had bunk beds which allowed for more room to spread out. He had a couch, bean bags, and the TV in the room itself. We could comfortably fit up to eight kids in there if we wanted to, but it was usually no more than five. We typically rented Role Playing Games when we had a choice. This way we were able to play the game as a unit, and just have one person decide basically by committee which actions to take (though most of the games were very linear.) With Zach at the helm, we'd all form a peanut gallery watching the entire game unfold, and thus play vicariously

When we'd get a game for the first time, we'd have to name the characters. The hero was always introduced first, and that was always Zach, since it was his house. After that, it was first come first serve. If you happened to be in the room at the time, you'd get a character. I have a distinct memory of Chrono Trigger exhibiting the ruthlessness that followed. Zach got the hero, the frog knight was named after Joe, the Robot was named after me, and Kevin...well, Kevin didn't get a character. I think he was on vacation that week, and we ran out of guy characters. He came back the next weekend only to find us having super awesome fun time with no Kevin characters. At that precise moment, though, we did obtain an airship which could be named, and thus the phrase "Board the Kevin?" was born.

We had many such inside jokes. In fact, I think we probably had more inside jokes than any other circle of friends on the planet. My friends and I were able to turn video games into an inherently social experience through rentals. Instead of fighting over it, we formed a sort of video game rental gang; we'd unite against the mystery others outside our immediate housing circle. Even single player role playing games became a party, as the man at the helm might have seven other people in the room telling him what he should do next. Rental stores aren't really a thing much any more; the age of Netflix, Gamefly and Goozex have put down what little market was there. Unfortunately the group that suffers is my generation. We didn't appreciate rental stores, and now we won't be able to fall back onto the rental when our kids start asking every day for a new game. Let's just keep hoping that our kids are satisfied with OnLive.